I may here remark, the Mussulmaun laws do not allow of men being confined in prison for debt.[31] The government of Oude is absolute, yet to its praise be it said, during the first eight years of my sojourn I never heard of but one execution by the King’s command; and that was for crimes of the greatest enormity, where to have been sparing would have been unjust.[32] In cases of crime such as murder, the nearest relative surviving is appealed to by the court of justice; if he demand the culprit’s life, the court cannot save him from execution.  But it is rarely demanded; they are by no means a revengeful people generally; there are ambitious, cruel tyrants to be found, but these individuals are exceptions to the mass of the people.  Examples of mercy set by the King in all countries have an influence upon his subjects; and here the family of a murdered man, if poor, is maintained by the guilty party or else relieved by royal munificence, as the case may require.  Acts of oppression may sometimes occur in Native States without the knowledge even, and much less by the command, of the Sovereign ruler, since the good order of the government mainly depends on the disposition of the Prime Minister for the time being.  There is no check placed in the constitution of a Native government between the Prime Minister and his natural passions.  If cruel, ambitious, or crafty, he practises all his art to keep his master in ignorance of his daily enormities; if the Prime Minister be a virtuous-minded person, he is subjected to innumerable trials, from the wiles of the designing and the ambitious, who strive by intrigue to root him from the favour and confidence of his sovereign, under the hope of acquiring for themselves the power they covet by his removal from office.

[1] When, a boy is born, the midwife, in order to avert the Evil Eye and
    evil spirits, says:  ‘It is only a girl blind of one eye!’ If a girl is
    born, the fact is stated, because she excites no jealousy, and is thus
    protected from spirit attacks.

[2] This is intended to scare evil spirits, but has become a mere form of
    announcing the joyful event.

[3] After the first bath pieces of black thread are tied round the child’s
    wrist and ankle as protection.

[4] Amaltas, Cassia fistula

[5] The purgative draught (guthl) is usually made of aniseed,
    myro-bolans, dried red rose leaves, senna, and the droppings of mice
    or goats.—­Bombay Gazetteer, ix, part ii, 153.

[6] Gudri.

[7] Ta’awiz.

[8] Among the Khojahs of Bombay a stool is placed near the mother’s bed,
    and as each, of the female relatives comes in she strews a little rice
    on the stool, lays on the ground a gold or silver anklet as a gift for
    the child, and bending over mother and baby, passes her hands over
    them, and cracks her finger-joints against her own temples, in order
    to take all their ill luck upon herself.—­Bombay Gazetteer, ix, part
    ii, 45.